3 Tig welding tips I wish I knew as a beginner 🔥SAVE TIME LEARNING!🔥

in today's episode we're going to go over three tips that i wish i learned when i first started tig welding stainless steel hey everyone welcome to another episode from pacific arc tig welding my name is dusty i'm a welding artist from vancouver island canada i do all kinds of art projects in 2d and 3d and on my channel i love showing off and teaching the art of tig welding so if you're new to the channel be sure to bounce back check out the previous episodes there's a ton of episodes to watch so today i was doing some thinking after i was doing some work with a student online i started thinking what would i have given to have some of these tips when i was first getting going with tig welding stainless steel so i put together a little list of the three most common things that i help people out with and most importantly the three most important things i wish i knew when i first started welding stainless steel so grab a notepad grab a coffee let's go so the first thing i wish i knew when i started tig welding probably one of the most simple things but i didn't know it welding with a messed up tungsten as you can see in this example here there's three tungstens the one on the far right is totally messed up this one's been dipped it's got all kinds of crap stuck on it if you have dipped your tungsten and have accumulated filler rod or anything like that you should not be using it the second one in the middle is a little bit more contaminated it's been dipped the tip of it's kind of messed up possibly broken off a little bit definitely not going to be a nice tungsten to get you a good crisp arc the one on the left actually doesn't look too bad but as you can tell if you really take a good look at it it does have a little bit of contamination on the tip this might have been something as simple as just a quick scratch start or something like that that i didn't intend to do it happens it's not a big deal but what's going to happen now is you're going to lose your arc stability when you have any kind of contaminant even just a little bit it's going to mess you up when you get into some precision stuff so whether you have a little bit of contamination or a lot of contamination in some way it's going to cause a little bit of arc wandering especially if you're welding thin material this is going to be absolutely infuriating to deal with your arc is going to be jumping around a little bit as you add fill it's going to be wandering all over the place it's going to be tough to do with thin material again if you're working with really thin material and you want a really pinpointed arc to start out you're going to have more difficulty getting a good clean startup with a contaminated or chipped tungsten so like i said when you go to arc up and you need a really pinpoint start forget about it your arc is going to flicker off to one side than the other possibly blow a bit of contaminant into your weld joint that you're about to lay a nice weld on so just do yourself a favor swap it out for a new one it's not a big deal i dip all the time i keep a little pot here i throw all my tungstens in i go and i grind them all at once when you do grind them as you can see here grind them lengthwise on the grinding wheel do not grind from the side grind so that the grain is going lengthwise with your tungsten you don't need an expensive super specialized tungsten grinder i don't have one here i just have a grinding wheel and it gets me by just fine obviously when you're using a wheel the finer the grit the better because the finer the grit you can have less grain on the grinded surface so finer grit is probably going to benefit you a little more as you can see i'm just grinding it lightly so i'm getting the finest grains i can lengthwise and all that really matters when it comes down to it is your grinding wheel has to be clean there's no way around it if you're grinding all kinds of other dirty metal on a grinding wheel and then you grind your tungstens with that same grinding wheel you're going to impermeate contaminant into the tungsten grain so be sure you have a specific wheel that you only use to grind tungstens with and just do the best you can just grind them off nice and clean as you as i said i don't have a nice tungsten grinder here i just do them on the wheel does just as fine of a job as anything else i usually use so general rule of thumb you don't get around it if you dip your tungsten switch it out for a new one all right moving on to my second tip proper post flow so besides dipping how else can we destroy a tungsten or cause it to get really gross is you can have an inadequate post flow after you finish a weld so pulse flow is used for a couple reasons like i just said it keeps your tungsten clean a general rule of thumb that i like to go by is when you finish a weld if your tungsten is glowing red hot it needs to be covered with argon so your post flow needs to continue for the duration of time that your tungsten is glowing if your tungsten is still glowing and then the gas chokes off because you don't have your post flow timer set long enough on your machine you'll notice that your tungsten will turn dark gray or black it will not be shiny that's a good telltale sign to show you that you've just collected a bunch of oxide on the surface of your tungsten so what's going to happen is you're going to go start up your next weld boom you're going to blow all that contaminant off your tungsten into the start of your next weld it's going to suck don't do that make sure that you have enough gas coming out of the torch to cover your tungsten while it's glowing red hot that way it'll stop oxide from forming on there if you finish you hear the gas shut off and your tungsten's still nice and shiny you did a good job so another thing to consider with the timing setting on your post flow on your machine is not only do you have to keep your tungsten covered with the amount of gas that's coming out you have to keep your entire weld covered while it's glowing red hot as well yes that's a very important step that i did not know when i started tig welding i couldn't figure out why i finished the weld when i peeked under my helmet everything looked nice and shiny but then as i moved my torch away everything turned really gray and messed up it looked terrible that's why basically like the tungsten when the weld is glowing red hot it needs to be covered by a blanket of argon what will happen is if your gas shuts off too soon and it's still glowing red hot it's going to cause an oxide on the surface of that nice weld that you just did it's going to look really dull and really gray it's going to ruin your day so take a look at this example here this weld looked like a decent weld only problem was it just got super hot and then as the gas moved away from it it formed oxide so it could have been corrected with a little more gas flow a higher cfh level or it could have had a longer post flow to keep it covered with a blanket of argon or a cloud of argon whatever you want to call it to stop oxide from forming once the weld stops glowing then you can cut off the post flow or remove your torch if you're ever in doubt how much post flow is going to cover you with the joint set your post flow higher than you think it should be then you time it after you finish the weld and then you can dial it back from there you got to kind of shoot a little high to start with find your settings and then you can dial it back and save gas after all right moving on to our final one number three filler rod technique this is so so important it's crazy how much of a roll this stupid little thing plays but it's a very important role and the slightest differences with technique are gonna help you out quite a bit so check this out your filler rod has to stay in line with two things to get you the best results number one is your tungsten angle so pardon me because i'm a lefty here this is what i mean by tungsten angle a good rule of thumb to follow when you're first getting going with tig welding stainless steel is the angle that your tungsten is at in relation to your work piece so if we're doing a push angle of about whatever that is 30 degrees or so your filler rod needs to be about 90 degrees to your tungsten angle so for example if our torch is set at about 45 degrees our filler rod angle needs to come up a little bit to match the 90 degrees from tungsten to filler rod angle again with an even more extreme welding angle whatever you're doing if this is some uphand or anything like that you need to correct by having about 90 degrees to your tungsten with your filler rod angle this is going to get you the cleanest dips that you can into the puddle if you're side feeding or feeding from awkward angles you're going to notice the tip of your rod is going to blow off it's not going to come off nice and clean just try and follow this as a rule of thumb you'll get better results the second thing that your filler rod has to stay in line with is your travel path so i got a piece of scrap here check this out this is what i mean by travel path so if we are traveling in a line like so from left to right or might be right to left if you're not left-handed like me which is probably most humans on the planet your filler rod is going to be in line with your weld like so if we're welding directly towards the camera on this pass here the filler rod is going to come in at an angle like so you're gonna have a push angle with your tungsten coming towards us you're not gonna be feeding from the side or anything like that you're gonna be feeding right down the middle like so again this is gonna get you the cleanest dips into the weld puddle anytime you're feeding from the side or from a bad angle especially like that 90 degree rule we learned about a minute ago you'll notoriously have problems getting the filler rod to dip nicely into the puddle you have little blobs coming off the end of the filler rod it won't dip properly into the weld pool it'll just make it easier for you if you follow these two steps so this is another rough example here i did this exercise on my channel from a week or so ago check it out in the description below but another way that you need to compensate with feeding angle going around a surface like so or around a piece of pipe is you can start with it in line like so but as we travel you're going to be going around the radius of something so your filler rod angle needs to change as you come around see how i'm tilting it more towards myself so basically when i'm going around a radius like so i'm always leading with my filler rod so my filler rod is kind of pointing straight at the direction of travel so those are two really technical ones that are going to help you out a lot when it comes to improving habits with your filler rod and the last important tip that i'll leave you with when it comes to filler rod technique remember our good friend post flow post flow's got to cover the tungsten post flow's got to cover the weld post flow also has to cover can you guess the hell did i put it the tip of your filler rod the tip of your fill rod is going to be glowing hot as well when you finish so also you need to keep the filler rod in the envelope of gas to prevent the tip of your filler rod forming an oxide because again we're going to finish you'll take your filler rod out it'll form the oxide but you'll take a lot of time to keep all your other stuff clean and covered like i know you will right then you're going to set up for your next weld get everything set up nice and clean with a good clean arc then you're going to dip a contaminated filler rod into your nice clean weld pool so again post flow big big tip it's got to cover the tungsten properly it's got to cover the weld area properly and it's got to cover your filler rod as well those are three major tips that i really really genuinely wish i learned when i first started tig welding if you got any value from this episode here's how you can repay me every episode i challenge everybody who learns something to go out and do a random act of kindness for a stranger spread some positivity in the world right now the world needs it go out help an old lady with her groceries or something like that wear your mask socially distant that's what i'm trying to do on my channel i'm taking all the things i've learned over my welding career which is like 19 years now and i'm sharing it on my channel so if you get any value from this do me a favor spread some positivity even if it's just online saying something nice to someone i'd appreciate that a lot but again to everybody out there i really really appreciate you watching i thank you very very much i hope you're safe happy healthy hope you have a good one we'll talk soon peace

Channel: Pacific Arc Tig Welding

Views: 458,493

Rating: 4.9646993 out of 5

Keywords: tig welding, welding tips and tricks, tig welding tips, tig welding stainless steel, how to tig weld stainless steel, tig welding how to, tig welds, Tig, tig weld, welding, tig welding for beginners, how to tig weld stainless steel for beginners, tig welding basics, Welding for beginners, how to tig weld for beginners, how to tig weld, how to weld, how to weld aluminum, welding tricks, tig welding tricks, welding tips, tig welding settings, welding settings

Id: XXnrEDsGBKo

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021